Fitting Equations to Data

Fitting an equation to data is the process of finding a linear, quadratic, exponential, or any other sort of function whose graph includes, or comes as close as possible to, a given set of data in the form of ordered pairs.

The relative predictive power of a model shows how accurately the model is related to the data.

Example
:

Plot the set of data points below. Determine whether to use a
linear
,
quadratic
, or
exponential
regression equation. Find the regression equation and graph it.